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Isotopic Tracing of Stormwater in the Urban Liesbeek River

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Isotopic Tracing of Stormwater in the Urban Liesbeek River Short communication Isotopic tracing of stormwater in the urban Liesbeek River Ruan van Mazijk1 , Lucy K Smyth1,2 , Eleanor A Weideman1,3 and Adam G West1* 1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa 2Institute for Communities and Wildlife in Africa (iCWild), University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa 3FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa ABSTRACT The ongoing drought in the Western Cape of South Africa (2014 to present) has called for an urgent need to improve our understanding of water resources in the area. Rivers within the Western Cape are known to surge rapidly after rainfall events. Such storm-flow in natural river catchments in the Jonkershoek mountains has previously been shown to be driven by displaced groundwater, with less than 5% of rainfall appearing in the storm-flow. However, the origin of storm-flow surges within urban rivers in the region remains unknown. In this study, we used stable isotopes in water to illustrate that at least 90% of water in the Liesbeek River during a storm event was rainwater. There was a strong correlation between storm-flow and rainfall rates (P < 0.001, Pearson’s r = 0.86), as well as between the δ18O and δ2H values of river-water and rainwater (δ18O: Pearson’s r = 0.741 (P = 0.001), δ2H: Pearson’s r = 0.775 (P < 0.001)). Storm-flow within this urban river therefore appears to be driven by overland-flow over the hardened urban catchment, rather than piston-flow as seen in natural catchments. Our results support studies suggesting the Liesbeek River could be a target for stormwater harvesting to augment water resources in the city of Cape Town. Keywords: stable isotopes, urban water management, water resources, urban rivers INTRODUCTION the ground, displacing groundwater which then flows into the Water resources in the Western Cape of South Africa are scarce river (Sophocleous, 2002). Piston-flow is an important process and are predicted to become increasingly so in the future for aquifer recharge, but may result in delayed storm-flow after (Otieno and Ochieng, 2004). At the time of this study the City extensive aquifer drawdown (McGuire et al., 2002). However, of Cape Town was poised to become the first major city to run while piston-flow may generally be the predominant pathway out of water (Du Toit, 2018). Currently, the cities within this for storm-flow in natural, fractured sandstone catchments predominately winter-rainfall region rely on surrounding dams (Midgley and Scott, 1994; Midgley et al., 2001), little is known for their water supply, which are generally replenished through about the dynamics of storm-flow from other rivers in this winter streamflow. During drought years, streamflow recharge region, particularly urban areas where substrate permeability is into dams is severely diminished (Mukheibir and Ziervogel, low. In such areas, overland-flow should predominate, resulting 2007). Extended below-average rainfall in the region since in rainwater directly recharging streams without sinking into 2014 led to severe water shortages in the City of Cape Town the ground to recharge aquifers (Burns et al., 2001). Unlike for and in 2017 threatened the potential collapse of the city’s water piston-flow, overland-flow should result in rapid storm-flow infrastructure (so-called ‘DayZero’). In order to secure future surges even in the case where aquifers have been drawn down water supply, cities in the Western Cape will have to adapt to substantially during prolonged drought. the likelihood of reduced rainfall in the future (New, 2002; Additionally, unless overland-flow-driven streams are Ziervogel et al., 2011), as well as augment their water supply captured in dams or water storage schemes, usually not the case from alternative sources such as aquifers and stormwater for low-elevation urban rivers, this water will eventually be lost amongst others (New, 2002; Fisher-Jeffes et al., 2017). As such, to the sea without the benefit of aquifer recharge (Frazer, 2005; understanding the storm-flow dynamics of rivers in this region Saraswat et al., 2016). In June 2017, during a prolonged 3-year and their relationship to rainfall is important, to properly drought, a large storm hit Cape Town resulting in severe winds manage the area’s water resources. and precipitation across the city. We used this opportunity Rivers in the Western Cape are known to rapidly increase to determine whether overland or piston-flow predominated in flow following rainfall. Midgley and Scott (1994) showed in the urban Liesbeek River and to assess the stormwater that streamflow in rivers in the Jonkershoek mountains surged discharge occurring during a drought. The source of the within a few hours of the first rains. Using stable isotopes, increase in storm-flow was determined using stable isotopes of 2 18 they demonstrated that despite flow increasing by 400%, the hydrogen (δ H (‰)) and oxygen (δ O (‰)) of river-water and storm-flow consisted of less than 5% of the rainfall event, rainfall (McGuire and McDonnel, 2007). We reasoned that a leading to the conclusion that these rivers were fuelled mainly predominance of overland-flow would result in rainfall and by piston-flow. Piston-flow occurs when rainwater seeps into storm-flow closely tracking each other throughout the storm event. However, if rainfall and storm-flow were isotopically dissimilar, or showed strong lags, then piston-flow was more * To whom all correspondence should be addressed. likely to predominate. +27 21 650 3628; We hypothesized that despite the mountain headwaters, e-mail: [email protected] this section of river flowing through the urban environment Received 14 February 2018, accepted in revised form 25 September 2018. would be driven primarily by overland-flow, due to the extensive http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/wsa.v44i4.16 Available on website http://www.wrc.org.za ISSN 1816-7950 (Online) = Water SA Vol. 44 No. 4 October 2018 Published under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence 674 hardening of its urban catchment. If so, this would have Packaging, Neenah, WI 54956, USA) and transported to implications for the effective future use of stormwater in this the laboratory for analysis. The rain gauge was emptied and river to augment the City of Cape Town’s scarce water resources. reset until the next collection. For practical purposes, the UCT and Skeleton Gorge rain METHODS gauges were only assessed after the storm had passed. As such, these only reflect total rainfall and isotopic composition Study area at those stations. No attempt was made to limit evaporative losses from the rain gauges during collection as these gauges The Liesbeek River originates in the natural Table Mountain were only exposed to the atmosphere during the storm, when sandstone catchment above Kirstenbosch but then flows evaporative losses would be minimal, and were sampled through the southern suburbs of Cape Town (Fig. 1), where immediately thereafter. All isotope analyses were conducted approximately 40% of its channel has been canalised (River within 24 hours of sample collection. Health Programme, 2005; Brown and Magoda, 2009). It has River-water was sampled from a weir in a canalised a total catchment area of 327 km2 and flows most strongly section of the Liesbeek River in Mowbray (33° 56′ 48.23″ S during the wet winter months. Flow is reduced during summer 18° 28′ 39.69″ E, 4 m amsl). Samples were taken prior to the months, with the shallow upper and middle reaches often storm event, at multiple intervals throughout the storm (in drying completely (Suri et al., 2017). conjunction with Mowbray rainfall) and for 8 h after the storm had passed. River-water samples were collected from Sampling methods below the water’s surface in a fast-flowing section mid-stream. Simultaneously, streamflow measurements were obtained by Prior to the storm, rain gauges were placed at the river measuring the time (Δt) it took a nearly submerged floating sampling point in Mowbray (33° 56′ 48.23″ S 18° 28′ object to travel a fixed distance Δx( ) down the middle of the 39.69″ E, 11 m amsl), at the University of Cape Town’s Upper channel. We used small oranges as floating objects as they Campus (UCT, 33° 57′ 24.30″ S 18° 27′ 40.00″ E, 120 m amsl) were visible at night and approximately the density of water and at the top of Skeleton Gorge on Table Mountain (the and thus mostly submerged and unaffected by wind. The Liesbeek’s headwaters, 33° 58′ 42.38″ S 18° 24′ 48.42″ E, depth of the water in the canalized channel (d) and breadth of 820 m amsl). Periodic measurement of accumulated rainfall the channel (b) was also measured. From these measurements, amount and isotopic composition were recorded at the streamflow rate ν( ) (m3·h-1) was calculated as: Mowbray gauge throughout the storm event. After recording rainfall amount, rainwater samples were decanted into 10 = × × (1) mL centrifuge vials, sealed with Parafilm (Bemis Flexible ∆ � � ∆ = [ ( )] +1 � − = 1 × 1000 � − � = − − Figure 1 Map of the sampling sites along the Liesbeek River, Western Cape, South Africa (1: Mowbray site, 2: UCT Upper Campus site, 3: Skeleton Gorge site). The Cape Peninsula is shown, with the Liesbeek River inset. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/wsa.v44i4.16 Available on website http://www.wrc.org.za ISSN 1816-7950 (Online) = Water SA Vol. 44 No. 4 October 2018 Published under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence 675 As we did not measure ∆x/∆t across the entire breadth of period, using regressions of those residual values against time, the canal, notably near the edges where flow may be slower to ascertain whether the strength of coupling between stream- than midstream, our estimate of streamflow represents and rainwater isotope values changed during the course of the an upper limit of potential streamflow and most likely storm.
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